


Lara

by SkyWrites



Category: Chrono Trigger
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWrites/pseuds/SkyWrites
Summary: Robo has just awakened after 400 years of loneliness. It is his first night back with everyone, with Lucca. In her sleep she stirs. He needs to know. What did she dream?Takes place during Lucca's red gate side quest after Robo grows Fiona's Forest.





	Lara

Robo’s gears whirred pleasantly under the night sky. The fire crackled gently, and the wind blew a light breeze through his heavy plated body. It was the first night he had spent with them after being away for hundreds of years. Lucca had repaired him.

It was such a strange feeling. He had been through so much. He had seen so much. People were born, people died, forests thrived, families came and went, and there were all sorts of nice little creatures. It was such a stark contrast to his time in the dead future. It was such a happy place, full of hope and cheer. Yet, despite it all, he felt the sting of loneliness.

Lucca stirred in his big metal arms. Her sleep would not come easily tonight. He strained his memory banks to remember before, found himself embarrassed at how difficult it was. She usually had a hard time sleeping. Stranger still, she seemed to sleep easier against his hard metal body rather than a blanket or a bed to herself. Why? It was so illogical.

Her lips moved. None of the others would hear her. Only his sensors could pick up her tiny breathless voice. “Lara. It’s Lara. It’s Lara.” Her brows were furrowed, her teeth grit. “Why won’t…” her voice trailed off as she shifted. “…it work…”

Shamefully, he scoured through his memory again. Many instances of Lara came up. But only by Lucca. Only when she slept. He ran through all their time together, every single moment, and felt a warmth instead of the dull pain when he was by himself. She never mentioned a Lara in the waking world. Who could it be? He yearned to know but dared not ask.

However, it had been so long. So incredibly long. Had it not been hundreds of years he spent away from her, he could have stopped his voice program, turned his volume down so low that none could hear, but something stirred within. An error that he could not fix. Lucca would know what to do. In her eyes, he had only been gone a few minutes. Yet he still remembered the frantic movements of her tools, felt the quickness of her pulse as she worked on his rusted broken body.

He could not help himself.

“Miss Lucca?” he beeped tentatively. Her eyelids fluttered in sleep. The nightmare’s grips loosening. “Miss Lucca, are you all right?”

She woke in his arms, her chest slightly heaving. He noted the wetness of her eyes. It was maybe something he was not meant to see, but he could not ignore his sensors.

“Robo?” She mumbled with a frown. “Huh? What is it?”

“You appeared to be uncomfortable in your sleep, Miss Lucca.”

There was a hot glare behind her lenses. “Why are you calling me ‘miss’ again, Robo? I thought I told you to just call me Lucca.”

How foolish! He felt his gears spinning, felt the steam rise to his helmet as he worked his CPU to its maximum. How had he forgotten such a simple order? Truly he was a defective model.

“I am terribly sorry, Lucca.”

Her eyes softened. A rare sight. “No, no it’s all right. I forgot how long it’s been for you.” She laid back against his arms and let out a sigh. It sent strange electrical signals throughout his wiring. A feeling he had nearly forgotten. A feeling that caused many errors in his logic. She had never been so close to any of the others, never leaned against them with all her weight.

Yet, she did not speak further. Had she forgotten? He supposed the sleep had made her groggy. Maybe it was best if he repeated his request.

“Lucca, your sleep seemed troubled. Is there anything I can do to aid you?”

Again, he felt that glare. “You already said that. I heard you the first time.”

There was a fire in her words, a fire that … frightened him? Fear was such a foreign concept. It was not something he was programmed to feel, so surely it was an error.

“I am sorry.”

“I probably have to do some more repairs on you, Robo. You’ve been acting strange.”

“I am sorry.”

He felt a swift strike against his chest armor as she smacked him. The metal rang out into the woods. Marle stirred in her dreams, and Magus’ cold eyes fell upon them.

“Quit apologizing!” Lucca growled, kissing her bruised hand. He had felt no pain from her attack, but he noticed the redness of her skin, the blood against her knuckles.

Frog’s glowing eyes openly gazed to them as well. It was as if he had never been asleep.

“Lucca okay?” Ayla grumbled, her body still sprawled out in the dirt without a care. She rubbed at her eyes.

Robo felt Lucca’s internal temperature rising, could hear the grinding of her teeth. “I’m fine.”

He felt a pang of guilt as he went against her orders again. “I am sor-”

She stood up. “Come on, Robo. I need to do more repairs.”

“But, Lucca, you did not meet the recommended amount of sleep.”

She tugged at his arms uselessly, as if her small body could ever move such an enormous thing. Still, he allowed himself to be pulled along.

“I can’t sleep anymore anyway, just come on already.”

* * *

Regardless of logic and sense, it felt quieter. They had not moved far from the sleeping group. He could still see the yellowy tint of the campfire through the trees, still hear Ayla’s roaring snores. It was darker as well. Even with his night vision module active, he found it difficult to read Lucca’s face.

He felt the tightening and untightening of bolts and screws in his head. Heard the clink of her tools as they pruned his wires and scrubbed clean his rusty insides. For someone that did not at all exude the common human characteristics of loving and comforting, Robo felt at ease in her presence as she worked through his circuits. Maybe that too was an error, but Lucca would surely fix it.

“What’s going on with you, Robo?” She asked, keeping her eyes focused on his insides. “I’m not finding any misplaced wires or any loose screws. You should be working just fine.”

Again, against all reason, his voice box beeped out in error: “I am sorry.”

She groaned. Robo noted a spike in her heart rate, a clenching of her muscles. “There you go again. Why are you doing that? Why do you keep saying sorry so much now?”

“I do not know. I am sorry.”

Each sorry merely angered her further. “Ugh. You really are a hunk of junk, aren’t you!?”

Her words stung and pierced his armor where her hands could not. The error message kept repeating internally and externally. “I am sorry.”

“Damn it!” She shouted, throwing her screwdriver into the dirt. “Why can’t I make sense of you?! Why can’t I make you work? Damn it, how am I still so useless?”

She did not come near his insides anymore, she appeared to be afraid of harming his components. His CPU cores worked at maximum, he felt the heat almost melting away his armor, felt pain. Still, it repeated, much to his dismay. “I am sorry.”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Lucca screamed, kicking him over to the ground. “Stop. Saying. That! It’s not your fault you idiot! It was never your fault! It’s _mine_! Are you so stupid?!”

He did not get up. He knew he belonged in the dirt. He continued to upset her. This was the optimal position for a defective machine like he was. He felt the message, heard it play over and over in his mind on a loop. It grew louder.

“I am sorry.”

“Robo, please,” she begged, suddenly at her knees. The fires of her rage fizzled out so quickly, out of nowhere. He did not understand. “Please stop. Please, stop. Please.” She was sobbing. He felt liquid hit his plates. She was laying her head against his, as if it was too hard to stand up anymore, too hard to hold any part of herself up anymore. “Please.”

The message continued to loop, continued to override most of his systems functions, but Lucca’s feelings reached deeper, spoke louder. Defective or not, he could not keep doing this to her. Even if he was defective, he could do this for her, do this one small thing.

“Yes, Lucca.”

He heard her gasp. The sobs were stilted, but she still could not return to her regular breathing rhythm. “Robo?”

“Yes, Lucca?”

She stayed silent for a time. There was a hiccup here, a sniffle there, but he felt the slow rising and falling of her chest again. It soothed his heated gears, cooled his temperatures.

“Robo, I should be the one saying sorry. Not you.”

“Why?”

She pounded a fist into his armor again, but this time there was barely any force. “Robo, you can be so dumb. Look what I did to you. I… I kicked you down onto the ground.”

“I am a machine, Lucca. It does not matter to me.”

“It does matter to you,” Lucca whispered. “And even if that were true. It matters to me.”

“I do not harm easily,” Robo countered.

She sniffled, a spiteful smile on her lips. “You’re such a bad liar. You cry at even the hint of damage.”

“I am a robot,” Robo continued, aware he was losing his argument. “It is not possible for me to cry.”

“Oh please.” An undignified hiccup left her throat as she wiped her eyes away. “If you never cry, then I never cry either.”

“Hmm.” His gears turned as his logic systems struggled to process her words. “I suppose I may have to concede to that.”

“Of course you do,” she said through a strained smile, laying down in the dirt with him. Her eyes stared deep into his ocular sensors. It was a strange sight. He did not understand. “We’re both defective after all.”

“You are not defective, Lucca.”

She frowned. He heard the shuffle of her clothing as her hand delicately touched the smooth surface of his plates, his tubes, his wires. It sent another hot sensation through him, but it did not hurt.

“How in the world can I fix you enough, so you can see that I am, Robo?” She sighed. “If I was just better with machines… You wouldn’t be in this position where I hurt you.”

“You do not hurt me, Lucca.” The words did not appear in his premade conversation models, but they seemed to leave his voice box anyway. “You hurt yourself more than anyone else. I only wish to heal you.”

Her hand froze. Her eyes glimmered under the night’s stars. The definition of beautiful seemed to appear in his search box.

_Plunk._

Her helmet press against his. Her breath was light, wet, and sad. She tried to smile. “Do you… remember?”

Of course. It was a memory he had saved many copies of, had made many backups of. If anything should be lost, he would have this. Robo did not have the ability to kiss, did not have the ability to heal organically like his fellow companions, but he and Lucca did find a way to show their affection in their own way.

He pressed his head against her helmet as well. He felt the electricity spike through, felt the energy of her sweet kiss. It sent many, many more errors through him, but he did not mind them. They were pleasant errors that he hoped would never be fixed.

“Yes, Lucca.”

It had been so long. So long since he had seen her. So many years. There were so many times he thought he would never see her again. So many times he was sure she would be gone. So many times he wished he could cry like she did.

“What was it like, Robo?” Lucca asked quietly. It was like she could read his mind. Which was incredibly likely. He sensed tension in her muscles. He did not want her to leave ever again. “All those years.”

“It was very rewarding work!” He started, using his pre-recorded message. However, more messages followed. Messages not in his programming. “It was also very lonely.”

She pressed her helmet against his harder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you there.”

Now he found himself on the other side. He understood her pain and hurt a little more. “Do not apologize, Lucca. It was necessary for the benefit of our world.”

“I don’t care about our world,” she grumbled angrily. “Not if it hurts you.”

So many strange definitions and messages shot through his CPU, so many different words and feelings sprung up before his interface.

“In truth, it was very lonely. But also, a good experience.” His words were not accurate, were not complete sentences, weren’t perfectly understandable to him. “I was able to spend many lifetimes in a living world, away from my own. I was able to see what our world could be like without the destruction. It gave me something to look forward to. If I can help destroy Lavos, I can make my world like that again. Even if it hurt, it was worth it.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks again for some reason. She wrapped her arms tight around him. She wouldn’t let go. They were both dirty, both broken.

“I can’t…” Lucca cried. “I can’t lose you. I’m so selfish. I know. But I can’t.”

“It is all right, Lucca. I am here.”

“I’m so pathetic. You weren’t even gone for more than a minute for me. Yet here I am crying like a baby to you, begging you never to leave.”

“It is all right. I will not leave you yet.”

_Yet._

“No, don’t say that, Robo.”

“Lucca.” His chest was on fire. He felt her melting into him, he felt himself melting.

“Please. Don’t.”

“I am not sure I have a choice.”

“Then let’s run. Let’s ditch them. We’ll take the Epoch, I have the Gate Key. We could go to any time we wanted, we could-”

“Lucca.” His volume levels were so low, yet he could not seem increase them. “We cannot do that.”

“And why not?!”

“It is too cruel. I could not live with myself.”

“But what about me? How. How am I supposed to live without you?”

“You did so before, did you not? You don’t need a defective robot such as myself.”

“Shut up. I’ll hit you again.” She paused, sniffled. “And it’ll just hurt me.”

“I would not like that.”

She cried still. She had to take her glasses off to avoid damaging them. She had to keep wiping her eyes.

“Lucca.” Robo started, his metal arms clasped tightly around her. He felt such a warmth he had never known before, never known possible. “If it is possible, when it is all over, I will not leave you.”

“You, you better not.” She said through sobs. “I’ll, I’ll find you, and I’ll keep hitting you if you do. If you leave. I’ll do whatever I have to do to find you again.”

“I believe you.”

“But.” Still, even though they were as close as possible, she tried to move closer to him. “You promise you’ll try not to leave at least?”

It was difficult. He saw the messages. He saw them blaring in bright red letters. _I am sorry._ It took all his processing power to keep from voicing it.

“I promise I will try, Lucca.”

She sniffled again, wiped the tears from her eyes yet again. “I guess that’s the best I’m gonna get, huh?”

 _I am sorry._ “Yes.”

“Fine. That will have to do then. I’ll take what I can get.”

They laid together in the dirt in silence for a while. Robo admitted he never wanted to leave either, never wanted to leave this spot. But the sun would rise. The seasons would turn. The years would add on. And Lavos would come.

“Hey, let go of me, will ya?” Lucca grumbled, even though it was her who held on the tightest, even though it was her who continued to sniffle. He still obeyed. “My shoulder is killing me. We shouldn’t be laying in the dirt. And I never closed your head.”

“I do not mind.” He removed his arms from her, felt her struggle to let go. He felt the cold of his steel returning. However, she did not leave him cold and alone for long. She gently pulled him up back into a sitting position and brushed off all the dirt and scrapes from his body.

“I know _you_ don’t mind.” Lucca sighed, a smaller sniffle leaving her. “But I’m not gonna let some gross bugs or whatever get into your head.”

He remembered his time hundreds of years ago. Many creatures made a home in his cranium then, and he found it pleasant. But he remembered Lucca’s intense displease of such organisms and thought it best to keep that to himself.

“Thank you, Lucca.”

She waved it off, already back to preening his wires and tightening his bolts. “Oh come on, it’s nothing. I _want_ to do this. You don’t need to thank me.”

Strangely, he felt the error messages returning. He did not wish to voice it. There was something else among the errors, among all the circuits and gears, something else he wished to voice. He wanted to be selfish as well.

“Who is Lara?”

…

The tinkering stopped. Her muscles froze. “Huh? What… what do you mean?”

She was so stubborn. She wanted so much to talk about Robo, learn everything about Robo, yet she would say nothing of herself. He wanted to know, he needed to know. He did not want to go back to repeating his error messages.

“Lara. You say that name in your sleep. But you never mention this person when you are awake. Who are they?”

Her fingertips were trembling. “Why do you want to know.”

He answered as truthfully as he could. “I do not know. I have always wondered. I would like to know.”

She tapped her shaking fingers against his helmet. The ping sent strange electrical signals through his wires, like a magnet placed upon his chest.

“That’s… my mother’s name.” She said slowly. He noted she still did not say it.

“I see.” Still, questions buzzed about in his processors. “What is she like?”

“…quiet.”

“Pardon?”

“She’s quiet,” Lucca repeated. He found she had begun to work again, her tools clinking gently in the night. “I’m not very close to her.”

He wanted to nod, but then realized that would disturb her work. “Ah. I have a mother too,” he said, as if it were a strange coincidence. “It is very difficult to be close to her as well, to understand her. She is very… … forceful.”

“My mom isn’t like that,” Lucca said with a robotic tone. “She’s a great person. She isn’t forceful or controlling at all. She’s perfect.” She paused. “She was perfect.”

Robo felt what he perceived to be guilt again. He would not apologize, as that would upset her further. “I am… … Ahem. Has she passed away?”

“No. She’s alive.”

Again, he wanted to say his error message. But, he refused. He would find a way around that for Lucca. “Should I discontinue my questions, Lucca?”

He felt a strange huff in his head as she tried to laugh. “You’re so thoughtful, aren’t you Robo.” The word ‘sarcasm’ blinked in in big letters in his interface. “But, no. It’s okay. No one else would probably ever ask. And I don’t think I’d answer anyone else. You can keep asking. It’s fascinating that you’re interested in something like this.”

Her hands continued to work. Her voice started to come back. Robo worried he was hurting her further, but the silence only created further errors, only created more hurt. He could not help but ask more.

“What did you dream of before I woke you?”

There was a slight twitch in her fingers, but nothing more. “Same dream I have over and over. Same thing I think of over and over.”

“About Lara?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was still low, still lacking the usual emotion she seemed so full of. “Since we started this whole thing, though, I’ve been dreaming of red gates instead. A gate that’d take me right before that moment.”

He shouldn’t ask. He felt her heart pounding against his metal plates. It felt close to bursting. But he yearned to learn more, he needed to know.

“What moment?”

She stayed silent. Not like before. Not out of shock, or lack of voice. He could tell she was thinking, thinking hard. “I’ve never told anyone.” Another long pause. She closed the compartment in Robo’s helmet and tightened the bolts closed. She moved to sit in front of him, her glasses glaring in the moonlight, hiding her eyes. “But I guess you’re not anyone are you, Robo? I suppose I could tell you and no one would know still, huh?”

Robo knew Lucca valued him as a person. Thought of him as even more than that. “That would be correct. I will keep your information safe. No one will know.”

She couldn’t stay seated in front of him. The words attempted to leave her lips, but it was too difficult. She abandoned her seat alone and chose instead to run back into his cold arms. She lay her head against his chest, warming him like a small campfire of his own. Just for him.

“Let me just tell you about the dream then.”

And she told him everything. Every detail. How her dream always goes the same. The red gate. It is not a friendly thing, not a pleasant thing. It’s a gate to something dark, something terrible. Horrible sounds of machines hissing and howling fill her skull, overwhelming everything. There is a pressure against her chest, against her head, crushing her.

She is back at that moment. She can change it all. She can fix it. She can save Lara. She knows the password now. She could never forget the password. For the rest of her life, she will always remember the password.

She sees it play out. Her younger self, looking so stupid, so useless. Crying like a baby instead of helping. Lara is stuck. The machine is pulling her closer. Lucca’s younger self can’t figure out what to do. She’s too stupid, too useless.

But Lucca is there. She knows the password. She KNOWS the PASSWORD. SHE KNOWS THE PASSWORD.

But she can’t input it. It doesn’t make sense. Again, she’s like a child. Again, it looks like gibberish to her. She finds herself desperately hitting buttons, desperately trying to find it. It’s Lara. It’s Lara! Just put in Lara! How are you so stupid? How can’t you do this? Put in Lara! It’s getting closer. Don’t you care? Do you not care about her? Why aren’t you doing it?

And it’s too late. She hears her scream. Such a tiny thing. Pathetic. She doesn’t even know who screamed. It was easily avoidable. She could have fixed it. She could have fixed it. She could have fixed it. She could have fixed it.

She could have fixed it.

“And that’s it.” Lucca said quietly. “That’s the dream. That’s the dream I had before you woke me. My father never stopped apologizing. To me or to her. He is a good man, he is a brilliant inventor, a loving husband and a loving father, but he is also a stupid man.

“That’s not even the worst part. My mom,” she started, taking a light gasp. “She apologized to me too. Can you believe that? She said sorry to _me_ like it was her fault. I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I could never look her in the face. It was my fault.”

Robo had stayed quiet the entire time. He listened to every word intently, felt every breath she took, felt the way she gasped when she said her mother’s name. He could understand her failures. He could understand wanting to change the past. He could understand losing someone, yet they remained. But maybe, maybe instead of doing nothing. He could fix it. He could make Lucca happy.

“I’ll give you my legs! They’re lightweight and well balanced!” He paused, realizing she would be upset at the mere thought of taking away his movement. “You could put some treads on me instead.”

She stayed silent. He felt her chest heave. She wanted to curl up into a ball.

“Please don’t be so sad, Lucca.” He held her tighter. He was always so afraid of hurting her, always so afraid that he might crush her at any time. But he wanted to show his love for her. Whatever that meant. It was not logical. He held her tighter but made sure not enough to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt her anymore.

She held back tighter in return. As tight as she could. No matter how hard she tired, she could not hurt him. He felt her muscles tighten, felt her put as much pressure as she could around his thick plated arms, but it didn’t make so much as a dent on him. He would not bend.

“Thank you. You’re such a good friend, Robo.” Her voice stayed still, stayed robotic, but he could feel the meaning inside her, feel the way she breathed, the way her muscles relaxed. To anyone else, it would sound fake, but Robo knew her every movement, even every heartbeat.

He quickly searched his databases. Friend. Friend. It all turned up empty. He had called his brothers and sisters friends at one point, but none had ever called him a friend in return. No one.

“A… friend? Me, a robot?” Maybe he had made an error. Maybe his hearing was on the frits. “You called me your friend?”

She did not reply. She continued to hold him tight. He knew what she meant. There was no reason for words between them. Of course he was her friend. He knew that. She knew that. She didn’t need to say it. There was more to it as well. He searched through the definition of friend and found it lacking. There was a better word for Lucca, but he could not determine what.

How could he express what she meant to him? She was always thinking of him, always upgrading his parts, always helping him understand his emotions. She did everything for him, but was he so cruel that he could not give her anything in return? What could he do? How could he say it? He needed to tell her, needed to show her something. He needed to show her she wasn’t alone.

How foolish! How could he forget! He had spent so many years, so many hundreds of years alone, that he had forgotten what he had picked up early on. A gift for Lucca. He meant to give it to her earlier, but his errors had gotten in the way. He noticed there seemed to be less errors now.

Robo quickly opened his chest compartment and reached inside. It was hot, and steam escaped into the night air. Maybe it was just a useless piece of junk by now, much like him, but maybe Lucca would understand. He hoped she would. With a quick motion, he placed the object into her small hands, relishing their softness, their warmth. He could hardly break his hand away from hers.

“This is for you. It’s a piece of amber I created using the sap of a tree from my forest.” He felt embarrassed. She looked at it with eyes wide, confused. What would she do with such a foolish gift? “It took 400 years and a lot of pressure to make! I hope you’ll find it useful.”

She clasped her fingers over the green amber. It was bright, and it was warm. It reminded her of the forest. There was a strange property to it that could not be explained through science. Could not even be explained through magic. There were no words.

“Robo… You’re so sweet,” she whispered, her throat seemed to be choking. Had he hurt her again? Why was she crying? But she held onto the amber so tightly, held onto his dream. Even though she cried again, it felt different from before. Her heartbeat was strong, her lips stayed in a small smile.

He could not understand. He too felt oil leaking into his ocular visors. How could this be? He was overjoyed. He was so happy to be with her. She worked on his body non-stop, and still he malfunctioned? But it was not all together unpleasant.

Together they laid into the night. He held her as she slept, and she held the dream close to her chest. There were no nightmares anymore. Together they dreamed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The last bits of dialogue were taken directly from game. 
> 
> Lucca and Robo's headbonk kiss is a light reference to [Darkhymns' oneshot. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429274)


End file.
